Clocks · Electrically-corrected dial clock
Electrically-corrected dial clock no. 4543 by The Standard Time and Telephone Co
- Maker / attribution
- The Standard Time and Telephone Co. (maker)
- Date
- c. 1890
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Electrically-corrected dial clock
- Materials / technique
- wood; brass; glass; steel
- Dimensions
- Overall: 470 x 470 x 150 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- ZBA0673
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Serial number: 4543 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number ZBA0673), this is an electrically-corrected dial clock by The Standard Time and Telephone Co., dated c. 1890. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: wood; brass; glass; steel. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 470 x 470 x 150 mm. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Catalogue description — Royal Museums Greenwich
Electrically-corrected dial clock, numbered 4543, fitted with Lund's patent synchronizer. Signed ‘The Standard Time & Telephone Co. Limited’ and ‘Synchronized clock, Lund's patent 4543’ on the white-painted dial with Roman numerals. The clock is housed in an ebonised wooden case with brass bezel and a gilt beading around the case-front. The basic clock is a conventional spring-driven pendulum-controlled wall clock with fusee movement and anchor escapement. However, on receiving an hourly electrical synchronisation signal delivered by wires connected to a 'master clock' (often several miles away, and in some cases from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich), a pair of pins which protrude through the top of the dial at the XII position move down a crescent-shaped track to the centre position, and then are released back to their upper, rest, positions. If the minute-hand of the clock was anywhere between :59 and :01, it is brought exactly to the :00 position when the signal is received. The clock is thus corrected every hour for errors of ± one minute per hour. John Alexander Lund, of Barraud & Lund, Cornhill, London, took out patent 3924 for this synchronisation mechanism on 11 October 1876. The Standard Time & Telephone Company was set up to market and supply this service with these clocks. For historical and technical details of the Lund system, see ‘The Horological Journal’ for April 1878, pp. 105–107 and an advertisement on page iv. of that issue, placed by Barraud & Lund.
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Factory production transformed the clock into an everyday object. American makers (Seth Thomas, Ansonia, Waterbury) and German factories (Junghans, Gustav Becker, Lenzkirch) sold millions of shelf, wall and alarm clocks worldwide; France produced standardised Paris movements and carriage clocks; electric time distribution began.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
Atlas type guide
Regulators, wall and Vienna clocks
A regulator is a precision pendulum clock used as a time standard in observatories, workshops and railway offices. Typical features are a deadbeat or Graham escapement, a temperature-compensated pendulum (mercury jar, gridiron or later invar), maintaining power and a regulator dial that separates hours, minutes and seconds. George Graham's deadbeat escapement (c. 1715) and his mercury pendulum, together with Harrison's gridiron, set the pattern for two centuries.
Wall clocks span a much wider range: the elegant Viennese Laterndluhr and Dachluhr of the Biedermeier period, the Dutch stoelklok and staartklok, English 'dial' clocks used in schools, offices and railway stations, and mass-produced spring and weight wall clocks from Germany (Gustav Becker, Junghans, Kienzle) and America.
What to look for
- Deadbeat escapement and compensated pendulum (gridiron rods, mercury jar or wood rod).
- A regulator dial with a large central minute hand and separate hour and seconds dials.
- Vienna regulators: glazed cases, slender pendulum, small weights, enamel two-piece dials.
- German factory trademarks stamped on the backplate (e.g. Gustav Becker anchor and crown, Junghans star).
Dating clues
- Graham-type deadbeat regulators: from c. 1720.
- Viennese Laterndluhr: c. 1800–1850.
- German factory 'Vienna-style' regulators: c. 1870–1930; Gustav Becker serial numbers allow close dating.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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